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Challenge yourself with every workout. When your aim is to gain strength, working out should never feel easy. In fact, that 30 minute to 1 hour period you spend lifting, pulling and pushing weight every day should be extremely uncomfortable. If it's not, you aren't putting enough stress on your muscles to help them grow stronger. Challenge yourself to "go all in" with every single workout to see maximum results over time.
- Some bodybuilding experts advise "training to failure." This means pushing yourself so hard at the end of any given workout that you are unable to do one more rep. Training to failure puts the type of stress on your muscles that causes them to break down and rebuild.
- If you're new to strength training, consider working with a personal trainer before pushing yourself too hard. It's important to learn the right techniques for each type of exercise; otherwise, an injury might prevent you from being able to continue working out and gaining strength.
Add more weight and reps over time. Once your body becomes accustomed to a certain amount of weight, you'll need to keep adding more to continue challenging yourself. You'll know it's time to add more weight to a particular routine when it starts to feel easier, and you're able to complete several sets of reps without "failure" occurring. Adding another 5 pounds or 5 reps is the way to continue challenging yourself and building muscle.
- Be careful not to add too much weight. You should be able to do between 8 and 10 reps before "failure" happens. If you can't do 4 reps without giving out, you're probably lifting too much weight. If you can do 10 or 12 without feeling the burn, you probably need to add more weight.
Begin with resistance training. Cardio exercises like running, swimming, and biking are great ways to keep your endurance good and your circulation healthy. However, only resistance training with heavy weight will build skeletal muscle. Weight training requires loads of energy, and if yours has already been used up by a long run or bike ride, you won't have enough left over to give weight training your best shot.
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Train every muscle group. Some people want big, strong arms, but don't care as much about their abs. Others want to focus on legs, pecs, and so on, but don't mind if their arms aren't as strong. However, it's a good idea to train every muscle group in your body, rather than focusing on just one. Having a strong core will help you bench press more weight with your arms. Being able to lift heavier weights with your arms will give your legs a better workout. All the muscle groups in your body work together, and it's important to give them equal attention.
- Don't work out every muscle group the same day. For instance, if you focus on your arms one day, during your next workout session you should give your arms a break and work on your legs or core instead. This gives your muscles time to rest and heal, preventing injury and promoting strength.
Get adequate rest between workouts. If you want to get strong, fast, you might be tempted to work out every single day. However, your body needs adequate rest in order to build back the muscle tissue you break down during workouts. If you work out every day, you'll never give your muscles the chance to get bigger and stronger. Plan to work out 3 or 4 days per week, remembering to rotate muscle groups.
- On your "off" days, it's fine to go for a run, a bike ride, or do some other type of exercise to keep yourself moving and relax your muscles.